Following The Yellow Brick Road Makes Enemies Stronger

The Pashtun time bomb

The alarming growth of Al Qaeda and the Taliban in the Pashtun tribal region of northwest Pakistan and southern Afghanistan is usually attributed to the popularity of their messianic brand of Islam and to covert help from Pakistani intelligence agencies.

But another, more ominous reason also explains their success: their symbiotic relationship with a simmering Pashtun separatist movement that could lead to the unification of the estimated 41 million Pashtuns on both sides of the border, the breakup of Pakistan and Afghanistan, and the emergence of a new national entity, “Pashtunistan,” under radical Islamist leadership.

Pakistan and Afghanistan are fragile, multiethnic states. Ironically, by ignoring ethnic factors and defining the struggle with jihadists mainly in military terms, the United States is inadvertently helping Al Qaeda and the Taliban capture the leadership of Pashtun nationalism. (entire article)

I could while away the hours
Conferrin’ with the flowers
Consultin’ with the rain
And my head, I’d be scratchin’
While my thoughts were busy hatchin’
If I only had a brain.

Are we living in OZ?  Are we Munchkins running toward the Land of Oz: a fantasy region containing four countries under the rule of one monarch?  The United States is on a collision course with reality.   Other countries that occupy the same planet, are holding their breath to see if America will return from the alternate reality imposed on the American population and the world.   The USA has emboldened the occupants of that nether world between Pakistan and Afghanistan.

In the conventional wisdom, either Islamist or Pashtun identity will triumph, but a more plausible possibility is that the result could be what the former Pakistani diplomat Hussain Haqqani has called an “Islamic Pashtunistan.”

Pashtuns being the largest single ethnic group in Afghanistan, bitterly resent the disproportionate influence enjoyed by the Tajik ethnic minority in the Karzai regime, a legacy of U.S. collaboration with Tajik militias in overthrowing the Taliban.  Pashtunsalso feel that they have been the main victims of U.S.-NATO bombing attacks on the Taliban, who are largely Pashtuns and operate almost entirely in Pashtun territory. In one authoritative estimate, civilian casualties have numbered nearly 5,000 since 2001.

So, what does the US do?  It promotes further conflict that insures the “terror” threat does not fade.  The Republican Administration is fearful that their grip on World Domination remains justifiable.  Without a Terror Threat could we accidentally slip back into stability?.  Without a Terror Threat,  Republicans would loose their grip on the gullible voters.   After all,  there is a lot of taxpayer money money money to be pocketed. 

The Minnesota bridge is a fine example of where taxpayer dollars should be going,  not into the pockets of corrupt war profiteering buddies.  The billions of dollars that are wasted, lost or unaccounted for since the Terror War was hi-jacked to Iraq,  could be applied to countless US projects to protect our own infrastructure.  Take a VERY close look at what Congress is spending on right now!   They are appropriating money to fix that Minnesota Bridge.    Great afterthought, huh?

 

WAKE UP! Musharraf In Trouble While The US Sleeps …

This is part of an OP-ED re-post from Munaeem’s Blog

 

Monday, June 11, 2007

 

TIME TO SAVE PAKISTAN FROM ITS RULER

by Eric Margolis

( The concerns expressed in this article are shared by every Pakistani and every friend of Pakistan. However, the solution is not elections that might return Benazir or Nawaz Sharif to power. They plundered the country and were even more obesquious to ‘friend’ USA and ‘enemy’ India who are strategic partners in the region. Pakistan needs an interim Government of patriots as provide for in the Constitution to change laws and reverse policies to undo the damage done since 1989.) Usman Khalid.

The US media should be focused on critical events that shape our lives, NOT Paris Hilton! While we are sleeping, world events and repercussions from our administration setting global fires are about to complicate everything! How long can America dismiss responsibility?

Hailed by Washington as a `democratic statesman,’ Musharraf has arrested and jailed thousands of people without trial. Many have been tortured. Elections are crudely rigged, legislators and judges bribed, and most of the army and intelligence service’s most capable, patriotic officers, were replaced at Washington’s demand by compliant yes-men untainted by Islam. Now, Musharraf’s security forces are intimidating Pakistan’s free press, one of its few remaining active democratic institutions.

What an irony that while Washington claims to be waging war in Iraq and Afghanistan to bring democracy, it is stoutly upholding Pakistan’s military dictatorship.

Musharraf outraged his countrymen by obsequiously kow-towing to foreign demands while neglecting Pakistan’s needs. Turning Pakistan into Washington’s sepoy(native soldier) in exchange for billions in overt and hundreds of millions more in secret CIA stipends used to rent loyalty to the military regime has shamed many Pakistanis and further enflamed anti-western groups in this important nation of 162.5 million.

Now, thanks in part to Musharraf’s wrongheaded policies over Afghanistan, the conflict there is starting to lap across Pakistan’s Northwest Frontier. Pakistan is facing one of the gravest national crises since its creation in 1947 as a beacon of honest, democratic government for the Muslim World. Sixty years later, Pakistan has become a poster child for self-serving, undemocratic government that often does not even represent the best interests of the nation.

The Bush Administration keeps patting Musharraf on the back as unrest worsens and Pakistan heads toward a potential explosion that could destabilize the entire region and leave US and NATO forces in southern Afghanistan cut off and vulnerable. The west cannot afford to let Pakistan melt-down.

Quickly restoring democratic government is the obvious answer. Pakistan’s banned opposition leaders, Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif, must be allowed to return and wage free elections. While burdened by a lot of negative baggage from her previous stints as prime minister, Miss Bhutto still appears as the most effective antidote to the current military regime and deserves strong western support. One hopes that recent rumors of a Benazir-Musharraf deal are no more than idle bazaar chatter. If they are true, then she will become as discredited as Musharraf.

Washington needs to press Musharraf to retire as armed forces chief. Musharraf is dragging down Pakistan with his unpopular, isolated regime. If he is as popular as he claims, let him run for office in a fair, democratic politician.

Time is fast running out. A nuclear-armed Pakistan facing regional, tribal and ethnic unrest or conflict is a hugely dangerous threat demanding urgent action. Pakistan must not be sacrificed for the sake of its leader.

This administration has put it’s finger in so many pies and stirred up so much trouble that, when all these little fires explode, the world will certainly experience the Bush Armageddon. Are we really prepared for the conflagration?

The US history of manipulation is about to come back and BITE all of us! Are we really Americans or blind sheep stampeding over a cliff?

Baluchisatn/Balochistan: Backdoor To Iran

Unrest simmers in Pakistan province By Kamal Hyder in Quetta, Baluchistan

Pakistan’s sprawling Baluchistan region is one of the world’s most remote areas and its hot, mostly barren, land encompasses the borders of three countries: Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan.

The area has enormous reserves of natural resources – resources that the people of Baluchistan say are not being shared fairly with them.
The landscape is vast and rugged. If it’s not desert, it’s mountains. A troubled region, foreigners are rarely welcome.
Beneath the mountains lie rich reserves of gas and copper. The people who live here want their share of the wealth, and some want to be free of Pakistan’s control.
Balach Marri, an elected member of the provincial assembly, leads the Baluch separatists. He is a secretive man – now in hiding from (Pakistani) government forces. Marri says: “In my opinion, the situation for the struggle of an independent Baluchistan is going ahead very well.”

 

Owais Ghani, governor of Baluchistan, said: “I’ll clearly state here that there was a foreign factor at work in which these tribal militants were receiving a lot of heavy armament. And we’re not talking about Kalashnikovs and all that, that does not worry us.

“Heavy armament in the form of anti-tank mines, anti-tank recoilless rifles, long range rockets, 107[mm] Russian rockets, even longer-range 20 kilometre rockets.”

Balochistan: The Neglected Insurgency [2007-06-08 03:43:39]

More pressing developments elsewhere in Pakistan have tended to overshadow the Baloch insurgency in the recent past, but Islamabad is finding it increasingly difficult to crush the rebellion in the province. “We have been Baloch for more than 7000 years. We became Muslim some 1400 years ago, and have been Pakistanis for just 60 years.” — Unnamed tribal chief in Balochistan, cited in Himal South Asian, May 2007…

Why does this event concern us? Musarraf of course. He is facing a coming election and has his military scattered around his country, putting out fires. The unrest in Balochistan, Religious extremists, Taliban and Al Qaeda influences have his resources stretched thin. There is speculation that America has a finger in the separatist activity …

According to government sources, the Marri militants are being financed by neighbouring Iran, some Gulf states and probably the United States who want to sabotage the Chinese involvement and influence in the building of the deep sea port in Gwadar.

A second item of concern is growing concerning are bombings in Iran associated with American and British interests.

Is the Bush administration behind the bombings in Iran? Using local tribesmen and separatists …

There are questions about the activities of the US military and CIA inside Iran as the Bush administration intensifies its preparations for war (in Iran). According to provincial police chief Brigadier General Mohammad Ghafari: “A video seized from the rebels confirms their attachment to opposition groups, such as the Jundullah, and some countries’ intelligence services such as America and Britain.”

Quote BossKitty: Covert disruptions have quite a track record of deniability but seldom achieves the end that sired it …

Quote CHILDREN OF DUNE: Atrocity has no excuses, no mitigating argument. Atrocity never balances or rectifies the past. Atrocity merely arms the future for more atrocity. It is self-perpetuating upon itself — a barbarous form of incest. Whoever commits atrocity also commits those future atrocities thus bred.